Staying afloat

Some months back an assistant in a bookstore at Canal Walk was very rude to me and in fact heckled me loudly for all to hear. I was annoyed so the next morning I faxed through a letter to the manager regarding the matter. Perhaps the fax fell into the shredder by mistake, who knows, but by the end of a week I had heard nothing so I mailed a copy of my letter. Sadly to this day I've had no response. I haven't shopped there since, nor even used the coffee bar. I am very disappointed. I stay away not because the assistant was rude but because management thought my upset too trivial to matter and couldn't be bothered to acknowledge what had occurred. I don't believe I should cut off my nose to spite my face so I continue to shop at that franchise and get my points but in Canal Walk I prefer the extremely helpful and friendly people at Bargain Books and Paperwight.
In these harsh times it's not more important than it was to keep customers it's just as important but perhaps more urgent. Some time back we lost a customer because his keyring was broken when we had his car in for service. A trivial matter you may think but to him it was important, we don't know what that keyring meant to him but despite our apologies we haven't seen him since.
Take care of the ones who keep you afloat, there are lots of people like me, the usually silent ones who don't complain, they just don't come back. I once saw a shoplifter being apprehended in a food store, she had packets of cheese stuffed up and down her dress - security put the cheese back on the shelf!! I haven't been back since. Little things!
That being said, when Paperwight were so kindly selling magazines at 4 for R10 I wanted a particular Doll House magazine. I don't do fluff magazines so it took me a while to pick out three others. One is a sort of travel mag and has a really interesting article about a man who provided a Himalayan village with solar power for their school. However, even more interesting is Where to Eat in London, a short paragraph, I'll leave out the restaurant name, I have no wish to be sued -
"I love nose to tail eating" (not for Caroline) "Which means that all parts of the animal make it into the frying pan. For me there is only one place in London that has mastered the art - the ..........Restaurant. They serve typically British food and lots of bowels too"
I'll pass.